The present invention relates to a counting and filling apparatus for tablets, dragees or similar elements comprising a plurality of counting bars arranged parallel and closely adjacent each other and each formed with a plurality of cutouts, spaced from each other in the longitudinal direction of the bars, for receiving the elements. The bars are connected in the region of opposite ends by carrier elements to form with the latter an endless receiving and transporting unit.
In a known machine of the aforementioned kind the endless receiving and transporting unit extends about three drive or reversing rolls, which are arranged at the corners of a triangle so that a relatively flat ascending section is followed by a steeply descending section, which in turn is followed by a substantially horizontally extending section.
The counting bars are releasably connected to the carrier elements, which are preferably formed by roller chains, and the cutouts formed in the counting bars are constituted by blind bores. An automatic ejection of the elements from counting bars in which not all cutouts are filled with elements by ejector means is in this construction not possible, so that an operator is necessary, to observe, during the passage of the counting bars through the steeply descending section, whether all the cutouts in the bars are properly filled or not. In order to properly permit such a control by the operator, it is necessary that the operator may properly survey the counting bars which at any moment are located at the steeply descending section of the unit. Such a survey will be possible only if the steeply descending section is relatively long. This in turn will require a large overall height of the apparatus. In known machines of this kind the upper edge of the hopper from which the elements are filled into the counting bars is therefore located about two meters, of even higher, above the floor on which the apparatus is mounted. This, in turn, will preclude manual filling of the hopper, and requires additional lifting means to lift the elements for discharging the same into the hopper.
It is therefore evident that the overall cost of such an apparatus, as well as the necessary space for erecting the same, is quite considerable. In addition, the known machines of the aforementioned kind require, as mentioned before, an operator for checking the proper filling of the cavities or cutouts in the counting bars and, in addition, if the cavities in the counting bars are not properly filled, the apparatus has to be stopped, so that the respective counting bar can either be completely emptied or any empty cavities filled by the operator with elements. Such a stopping of the machines evidently precludes a fully automatic operation of the same. In addition, the output of the apparatus is evidently considerably reduced.
Furthermore, since in apparatus of this kind known in the art the angle of inclination of the various sections of the moving receiving and transporting unit cannot be changed, there arise quite often difficulties if the cutouts in the counting bars are, as usually desired, dimensioned for the reception of elements which, within limits, have different dimensions.
These difficulties reside in that, in the event smaller elements are filled into cavities of larger dimensions provided in the counting bars, empty spaces will remain in the filled cutout, into which additional elements may settle, projecting beyond the upper surfaces of the counting bars. To eliminate such elements a stripping brush or similar means is required. Such filling elements, which are stripped from the counting bars, glide then downwardly over the whole length of the relatively flat ascending section into the filling region of the unit, whereby these elements often break. If the surplus elements are not stripped properly, they move beneath the rotating stripping brush, to be either crushed by the same or to be thrown outwardly in the region of the steeply descending section.
Finally it happens quite often, especially during counting and filling of dragees, that dragees are present which are too thick or dragees to which particles of broken dragees cling. Such dragees may be wedged in the blind cavities of the counting bars, so that they may not fall by gravity out of the latter, to continuously move with the unit, thus causing faulty counting.